Newbie Guide
HoG is a multiplayer game based on Heroes of Might and Magic (HoMM). The goal is to build an army and conquer as much of the world of Gaia as you can. Crash course Some things to do to get started: *Get a second hero - build a Hero Tower and a Tavern. Hire heroes at the tavern. *Build and upgrade all Buildings to level 2 *Research all spells to level 1 (in Magic Tower) *Accept and Complete Daily and Hero tasks for experience, fame, resources, and other rewards. *Visit a windmill for free resources *Visit a water wheel for free gold *Join a guild with good guild buildings. (This may be hard with low fame) *Appoint a Castellan before logging off Some things not to do early on: *Use accelerated training cards. These are much more useful later. *Attack a 2nd NPC castle with an hero less than level 20 or army less than 250,000. Basics Initially you start with a castle and a few structures (if you follow the tutorial), a hero with a few units, and some resources. As a new player, you should focus on to building up your Castle, and be attacking low level NPC targets. There are 3 main areas of play: inside your castle, on the world map, and in battle. Read on to see how to play in each area. Castle screen In the castle, your objectives are to build and upgrade buildings, research and upgrade spells, and train/arrange/heal troops. As a newbie, this is what you will do most of the time. This is best achieved by following the Main Tasks list, which will reward you for each activity you complete. Building/upgrading buildings by far gives the most fame, which in turn allows you to recruit more heroes, occupy more mines, and so on. Buildings are initially built by clicking on the Townhall, then clicking the build button next to the desired structure. If this button is gray, hover over it and you'll see what resources you need to acquire first. To acquire resources please check the guide on resources later down the page. Buildings meanwhile are upgraded via the upgrade button in the building's pop-up window. Please remember however that a building must be fully built for you to be able to upgrade it, or access the building's menu. Once you build a magic tower, skills and spells can be researched and upgraded via the pop-up window, viewed by clicking on the tower. The skill effects are self-explanatory in the hover pop-up window. Spell effects are self-explanatory, however there are some exceptions; these are spells used directly in battles, and those exclusively for Castellans (heroes assigned to defend a castle by equipping them in the hero tower as a Castellan) Finally, once you have a barracks and arena (later units require additional support structures and skills) you can build troops to conquer your small patch of this fantasy world. Unit training costs resources and takes time. They are built via the barracks and assigned to heroes and healed in the arena. Your hero level limits how many troops can be carried. You will want to get the mage tower then level 1 of the resource boosts very early so you get the continuous resource boost. Next, focus on getting level one of everything except the race specific big building and advanced combat unit buildings. World Map screen As a newbie, your objective on the world map is to attack the various monsters and resource piles to obtain hero experience, resources, and a little fame. Click on an item and the pop-up window will tell you the details of these NPC items and enemy force guarding. From this pop-up window you can assign a hero to attack the pile. These acts cost AP (link). This is the main use of AP in the game - sending heroes to attack NPC piles for their contents, and later other players. Star counts on monster piles indicate the relative difficulty of enemies within compared to other monster piles. The difficulty increase with number of stars is MUCH faster than with resources. Star counts on items indicate the relative difficulty of enemies within compared to other items and the level of item awarded for winning. The difficulty increase with number of stars is much faster than with monster piles. Resources Resources are needed for various aspects of the game. For example: Developing your castle, building up your army and developing the various combat and non combat spells available in the game. There are five types of resources: Lumber, Ore, Sulfur, Crystal, and Gold. Resources on the World Map The most obvious way to build up your initial stockpiles will be to attack the various resource icons on the world map. Each of these have a star rating. Star ratings on resources indicate the relative difficulty of enemies guarding these and the amount of specified resource awarded for winning. It is best off while still in the early stages of the game to obviously concentrate on the lower rated stars. When you feel confident enough to go for bigger stockpiles feel free to do so, but remember if you have very low resources to begin with, wiping out your force could lead it to becoming very difficult to build up a force again. By visiting resource buildings like the windmill and water wheel each day, you will be given a selected number of resources. The waterwheel will give you up to 2000 gold. The remaining resources will be given out by the windmill (one type of resource per day). Mining Once you have sufficient military force (20k plus), you could try to take take over as many unoccupied mines as allowed by your fame level. To occupy an unoccupied mine press "Occupy" on the selected mine. There is largely no need to have your hero guard a mine, so after the battle (you do not have to be logged on for a battle to progress), make sure you return the hero back to your castle. This is done by pressing "recall" hero. To access your hero menu, either click on the mine he is currently occupying, or click on his face on the side tab (this tab indicates the heroes that are currently out of your castle). Don't worry if you cannot find an unoccupied mine nearby. Click on the the tiny plus icon next to the minimap on the top right side and this should bring up a large world map. Press somewhere away from your current location (near the edges of the world map, perhaps) and you will hopefully eventually find an area with unoccupied mines (these will appear as brown triangles on the minimap). It should not matter how far away you click; the game features portals which allow faster travel than walking the entire way would permit. Portal travel is achieved by clicking on the desired location (the mine, in this example) and then selecting travel by portal in the drop down menu. Resource Buildings Certain World Buildings such as the Dryad Treasury give a nice pile of resources, on the order of 2800 crystal/5600 ore/28000 gold every 12 hours. However, they are defended by a significant NPC force (about 150k in troop value). Once a player has tier 6 troops, attacking and occupying these world buildings becomes a realistic option. Farming Other Players This is one of the areas of the game where an aggressive/active playing style can bring significant rewards. Significant resources can be had from declaring war on, and then attacking the poorly defended main castles of other players. Each attack takes 15% of the resources currently in the Warehouse, or whatever your army can carry home, whichever is less. This is probably the most AP and time-efficient way to gather resources. To give specific examples, a player with 5K fame is likely to have a T4 or T5 warehouse, a player with 50K fame is likely to have a T7 warehouse, and a player with 100k fame can have a T9 or T10 warehouse. Attacking a player normally costs from 40-70 AP, depending on the fame difference between the two of you. One raid on a 50k fame player, taking 15 minutes for a round-trip, may result in your army bringing home 3000 ore/lumber, 1500 crystal/sulfur, and 30000 gold! It is considered extremely poor etiquette to farm active players, so it is standard practice to mail a potential "farm" asking whether they are active; farming begins only when they do not respond within a few days. Not doing this may result in the other player (and his/her guild) farming you! It is also prudent to scout a potential farm before attacking, in order to avoid being surprised by a defending army that is stronger than your farming army. Battle screen By default, battles are automated turn based events. Units nominally act in order of their speed, scaled by the hero speed. Melee units advance towards the "most threatening" enemy stack at the start of their turn and attack if they are in range at the end. Typically this means the stack with the highest summed attack within the closest general range (middle of battlefield is normal) Ranged units fire on the "strongest" enemy stack at the start of their turn. This continues until one side loses all its units or time runs out. You can give general advance/stand/retreat commands via the lower left buttons, and to specific units by clicking on them or their portrait. Use this to your advantage to get first attacks and have your ranged take out their ranged first if appropriate. You can also cast spells, provided they have been researched (mage tower) and equipped (hero tower). Losing units: when you lose units in combat, about 75% are immediately transfered to your castle's arena -> infirmary as injured. The other 25% are permanently lost. You can get the injured units back via the Barracks/Graveyard->infirmary for a gold cost. Once healed the units are placed in your castle army. You have to re-allocate them to heroes. Guilds Guilds are a crucial aspect of the game, offering knowledge, solidarity, and important gameplay bonuses that can speed growth. These bonuses include increases in hourly resource production at all castles, reduced unit training time, increased hero unit capacity, and reduced healing time for units in the infirmary. On a well-established server, most reputable guilds will already have guild buildings that are at the maximum level of 10; it is a personal choice whether to join one of these or to select a newer guild that provides fewer bonuses. Stats The game is largely stat driven, here are a few of the most important: *Fame, which is your score *Rank, which increases with Fame, and allows you to do more things *Hero Attributes One of your goals should be to increase all of these. Category:Strategy